Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

At one point I spent a couple of days watching dozens of videos on procrastination, and this video [1] by Tim Pychyl was by far the best. I strongly recommend it.

It's ostensibly focused on helping grad students with procrastination, but the tips and techniques he gives in the talk can be applied by anyone.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA

View on HN

> At one point I spent a couple of days watching dozens of videos on procrastination

I don’t know exactly why I find that so amusing, but I feel like I’ve done something fairly similar. Added that one to my queue.

Thanks for sharing. This gave me a chuckle:

  Tomorrow - a mystical land where 98% of all human productivity, motivation, and achievement are stored

I'll get around to watching it at some point. :P

It’s become a running joke in my house, but I bought a book about 20 years ago called “The NOW Habit”, all about beating procrastination. I still haven’t read it.

The most helpful recommendation you could give it would be to tell us whether or not after watching it you did what you were supposed to be doing when you were watching dozens of videos on procrastination?

I watched this a couple years ago and found it had lasting impact.

My key take away from that video was moving from goal intentions to implementation intentions.

"in situation x, I will do behavior y, to achieve subgoal z"

good stuff.

I'm going to watch it as means to avoid doing what I should be doing

Agreed. His book is also highly recommended:

https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Procrastination-Puzzle-Concis...

Eyeroll. Read it. I read everything. Look, my brain is broken. It would literally be easier for me to off myself than do everything I need to do every single day. It's simply hell.

A mediocre life is the best I can hope for without modern medicine. When I had access to it, I felt normal for the short but brilliant time it lasted.

I feel this pain deep inside my brain. My head is like a million points moving in several directions at once, all the time. In fact, I just set up another appointment where I am going in full throttle for whatever medication I can get. I am completely exhausted trying to keep these points all lined up in a straight line.

You might want to take a serious look at your nutrition. Nutritional deficiencies or imbalances can cause all sorts of very serious issues, including mental issues.

Taking long walks in nature (as in 2 or more hours long) can help, as can unplugging from the internet and other media, and meditation.

Many of us hyper-stimulated, and are in a pavlovian loop of jumping from one source of instant gratification to another, without taking much time to reflect one's own life and the world. Quieting one's life might help.

The nutrition point is so difficult to evaluate - a lot of personal variation, many anecdotes, few good scientific studies, a lot of subjectivity and misattribution, people getting fired up online and turning it into ideology... it's very difficult to figure out what's true and what actually works for you.

I think it is mostly a case of scientific belief in a trial by error process: if you believe in trying a bunch of different ideas, you are likely to eventually hit on solutions that help or hinder. You do need some minimum set of ability and brain power to do this effectively. However, even prophylactic or placebo effects can be minor wins (so long as you can manage to avoid dangerous things, like too much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor ).

1000% agree about the hyper-stimulation. I see the signs of it in everyone around me. Very very few people take the time to "unplug" and ACTUALLY experience some quiet times, reflect on life and shut out the infinitely-noisy outside world.

These are great tips. I do miss my days spent outdoors (took a few years off to run a flower planting crew at a landscaping company and run some long distance races).

As for nutrition, I do think I'm doing well there. Other than a sugar fix at night, I eat pretty good/healthy/whole food.

Unplugging is probably my short term answer. I'm also going through the stresses of resigning from my day job and ramping up my side work, so that's a source of intensity too.

"pain"

Psychological pain is real pain, wouldn't you agree? Isn't it all "in our heads" either way?

In my experience, even having access to all the medicine you need doesn't really make things that much better. Sure you can force yourself to work or sleep or smile for a day, but you can't do it every day.

After reading the 1 and 2 star reviews, is there any one particular point that differentiates this book from the others? (Getting Things Done, Eat the Frog, The Now Habit, etc.)

So, listening to this talk, he doesn't spend any time addressing ADHD? That seems like a pretty glaring omission to me.

This video on ADD/ADHD was very beneficial for me. With Thomas E Brown, PhD

https://youtu.be/ouZrZa5pLXk

Thanks for sharing! I will favorite this comment to watch later, completely forget about it, see it some other time, and not watch the video (like everything else I favorite on all services)... haha :`D

Also he had a podcast https://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/

this is somewhat sad/hilarious. I watched that video like a solid 5 years ago, now I am back with the same unsolved problems lmao

It's easy, just procrastinate later

Reply on news.ycombinator.com